From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

subconsciouslyy been preparing myyself for…something. Myy stomach
tumbled. More likelyy, the gown was false bravado.
Hawke’s gaze found mine. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”
“Does that mean yyou’re going to get up so I can move?”
Why haven’t you made him get up? whispered that stupid, veryy
reasonable, and veryy logical voice. That was a great question. I knew how
to use a man’s weight against them. More importantlyy, I had myy dagger
and access to it. But I hadn’t gone for it, nor had I trulyy made an attempt to
put space between us. What did that mean? I…I supposed I felt safe. At
least, at the moment. I mayy know veryy little about Hawke, but he wasn’t a
stranger, at least he didn’t feel that wayy to me, and I wasn’t afraid of him.
Hawke shook his head. “I have a theoryy.”
“I’m waiting with bated breath for this.”
That dimple in his right cheek appeared once more. “I think yyou came
to this veryy room with a purpose in mind.”
He was right about that, but I doubted he would be right about the
actual reason.
“It’s whyy yyou didn’t speak or attempt to correct myy assumption of
who yyou were. Perhaps the cloak yyou borrowed was also a veryy calculated
decision,” he continued. “You came here because yyou want something
from me.”
I started to denyy what he suggested, but no words rose to the tip of myy
tongue. Silence wasn’t a denial or agreement, but myy stomach dipped
again.
He shifted ever so slightlyy, his hand coming to rest against myy right
cheek, his fingers splayyed out. “I’m right, aren’t I, Princess?”
Heart skipping all over the place, I tried to swallow, but myy throat had
dried. “Mayybe…mayybe I came here for…for conversation.”
“To talk?” His brows rose. “About what?”
“Lots of things,” I said.
His expression smoothed out. “Like?”
Myy mind was uselesslyy emptyy for several seconds, and then I blurted
out the first thing that came to mind. “Whyy did yyou choose to work on the
Rise?”
“You came here tonight to ask that?”
Not a single thing about his tone or his look said he believed me, but I
nodded while I added that this was yyet another example of how I was